Tokyo

Another 7+ earthquake hit Japan yesterday, just as I was thinking of what to blog about next. I'm so backlogged that it's not even remotely funny. If there are still any of you out there, don't worry. I'm still alive... I'm still baking. Just trying desperately to get back into the swing of things. It's been almost a month since my short lived trip to Tokyo,  and as I mentioned, the only thing I managed to really do was eat. In fact, I think they could probably attribute the food shortages to one hungry Californian.

 

One thing I must say, the Japanese sure know how to eat. And eat well at that. Though food is a lot pricier in Japan, the quality is unmistakably higher. We noshed on super fresh sushi, and even beef and chicken sashimi.

Another thing I like about a lot of Asian countries is how easy it is to get really good street food. In Tokyo if we were hungry for an afternoon snack, we could easily pop into a shop and grab an onigiri (rice ball), or walk up to a noodle stand. At these vending-machine type noodle stands, you put in your money, press a button and out comes a ticket. Hand the ticket to the person behind the counter, and in return they'll hand you a steaming bowl of soup. Though I can't read Japanese, I did a decent job of matching up the characters to those in the picture with udon and tempura. Yum.

Another one of my favorites that goes exceptionally well with beer, or sake, or whatever libation you have on hand... is yakitori. Yakitori translates to grilled chicken. However, if you can stick it on a skewer, you can grill it. We had grilled chicken, veggies, beef, intestines, and a nice spread of appetizers. My favorite, yaki onigiri. If someone could just fill one with fried spam and sauce... yumtastic.

Amidst the tragedy, we were able to somewhat enjoy ourselves before freaking out again and jumping on the first plane home. Hopefully one day I'll be able to go back and visit the largest fish market in the world, spend a day at an onsen, and eat my way through more of Japan.